Platform technology enables the creation of applications and processes using the properties of the existing platform. Oracle, Amazon, VMWare, Microsoft, and Salesforce all produce platforms, and particular cloud-based platforms, that they sell as a service. This business model is called Platform as a Service (PaaS).
The advantage of platforms is that they provide an already-developed backend for running complex applications. Thus, for someone familiar with the platform, they save significant hours of programming by providing application developers with a feature-laden environment that they do not have to develop for themselves.
In this platform as a service model, the application developer creates the software using tools and libraries from the platform provider, for example Salesforce. The developer may also control software deployment and configuration settings. The platform provider provides the networks, servers, storage, and other services that are required to host the developer's application.
One of the challenges that a developer faces, however, when using a PaaS is that he is slave to the platform's rules. Thus, it may require many unnecessary steps to perform an installation or update to the application because the developer must meet all the PaaS's requirements. Or an update or new application may get hung up in deployment due to delays or triggers set out in the PaaS that the developer did not know about.